LITVINENKO_TRANSCRIPT_TAPE 1 – 2003-1
Ex lieutenant colonel of FSB Alexander Litvinenko, murdered by radioactive polonium in London in 2006, was videotaped by the Australian journalist Nick Lazaredes in 2003, for the documentary “Crimes of the Kremlin”.
Litvinenko speaks on his personal story, corruption of FSB, links to organized crime, concrete top FSB officers, as well is on his meeting with Putin in 1998, the head of FSB, to discuss those ties.
“The only thing I was told by an officer of the internal security Directorate that I’ve met was “ Sasha, they sell tanks, they sell arms, they sell… I mean, heavy arms, to Africa. Those arms go to the Middle East.” 34:55:08
34:56:20 I mean now… To corroborate these words… I saw in the office of my head of Directorate, Hoholkov [Evgeny Khokholkov], that group was l inked to Hoholkov… we actually had Hoholkov, the former head of our Directorate, on file as one of the top people in that group… I once saw Boot [Bout] in his office. There’s now an international warrant out for this Boot for illegal arms deals. 35:26:00
35:26:04 That man had ties to Ukrainian criminal groups, that man, according to our records, had ties to the son of Derkach, the former head o f SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) and one of the closest associates of Ukrainian President Kuchma. On top of that there were links, there were threads going to the illegal sale of drugs. I mean, the head of our Directorate, Hoholkov, and it was him who ended up in our sights, his connections… He had links, he associated with criminal groups that were running drugs from Afghanistan”.
For background see also: Interrogatory of Alexander Litvinenko by Spain’s law enforcers in London, 1st of June 2006 (featuring Khokholkov and other characters): Khokholkov covered up heroin trafficking from Afghanistan, controlled by a group formed by Putin, Chemoi, Ivankov and Rakhimov (Gafur).
See also: affidavit by German Gorbuntsov, whistle blower in the Russian laundromat case. On April 10 2009 in Moscow, Gorbunstov attended a meeting in presence of Solntsevskaya representative Viktor Averin and retired FSB general Evgeny Khokholkov, where he was threatened and the process of extortion began. Gorbunstov survived an assassination attempt.
See also: Cooperation between FSB and organized crime, Swiss DPA’s analytical report, 2007.
The text of the document has been extracted automatically and may contain errors.
### Text extracted from: https://tbcarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/LITVINENKO_TRANSCRIPT_TAPE-1-2003-1.pdf
TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEW ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
(LIEUTENANT COLONEL – FSB) LONDON
TAPE ONE (1)
00:00:26:18 Yes, I’ve been leaving in London for a bit more than two years now. Of course,
it’s hard to leave away from my motherland. I miss my home, I miss my friends, but… I want
to use this opportunity to thank England, the country that gave refuge to my family and offered
us real protection. 00:46:10
00:46:14 Well, emigration is always a difficult thing, especially forced emigration, when you
never thought of, never dreamed of leaving your homeland. There are people who live in
Russia but want to go to the West – I never had such thoughts, I never wanted that, it just…
became a necessity. It was a very hard decision to make both for me and my family.
01:15:14
01:15:18 And I must say that I’m grateful … to England … to the British government that
made a decision on my case, sorted it out quickly and objectively and granted me political
asylum. So the British justice system, the British lawenforcement agencies confirmed that I
was a political refugee that I was persecuted in Russia not for criminal reasons… That my
motifs were not of a criminal but of political nature. 01:51:00
01:51:04 And of course now… we’re getting used to England, so to say… one can say we’re
putting roots into that soil. My son speaks very pure English now and I’m afraid he’s going to
forget his Russian. He’s turning into an Englishman and I realise that quite well. He is
acquiring a mentality of an Englishman. I can see that. He’s different… He’s different from
those children that… that, let’s say, grow up in Russia. 02:34:00
02:35:02 It’s his… It’s the way he sees life. And… My wife also speaks English quite well. I’m
studying English. We’re acquiring friends here… And if, say, I had to go back to Russia right
now, if I went back to Russia… I understand it quite well, that while being in Russia I by now
would have missed London just as I’m missing Moscow now. 03:09:12
03:20:04 Well, my application for asylum… Just a second, may I?… 03:00:25
03:26:10 Marina, Marina, close the door, please, it’s too noisy. Please. Excuse me. 03:31:00
03:35:12 Let’s roll it back a bit. I’m sorry. 03:37:00
03:41:04 Well, 1 November 2000 I and my family arrived in London to the Heathrow airport.
Immediately on arrival, I think within an hour, we addressed the British government and
appealed for political asylum. I was granted political asylum on 3 May 2001. 04:12:00
04:13:00 So, in fact, it took six months. 04:18:00
04:21:08 Well, I was granted political asylum because I was subjected… because my case
was not a criminal, but a political one. I was persecuted at home because of my political
convictions. For the things I said. 04:37:00
05:00:10 Well, I must say that that escape proved to be a very serious trial for me and my
family. … First of all, when I… Before we escaped Russia… If we consider it stage by
stage… First of all, it was very hard to make a decision, the decision to leave Russia. I
understood that if I leave Russia I’d be leaving it … for a long time. 05:29:21
05:29:30 And I won’t be able to come back anytime soon. And I… thought about it for a long
time, so did my wife, before we took that decision. We discussed it. It was a painful, difficult
decision. I’d compare it to suicide. I mean, in fact, it’s when a man takes… the question
whether to commit suicide… Well, it was tantamount to suicide. 06:03:21
06:04:00 I understood there’d be no way back. There’d be a new life ahead. And it would be
full of things unknown. But I also understood quite well that if I stayed in Russia they wouldn’t
leave me alone, the Russian secret service, I mean. Because people working in those
structures don’t know how to forgive. If they start forgiving people, the whole system of secret
service would be no more. 06:31:18
06:31:22 I mean, Russian authorities… they don’t forgive. Well, this mentality, I’d say, is a
Communist mentality. Communists never forgave those who challenged them. And now,
unfortunately, that’s what perpetuates in Russia, I realised that quire well. 06:56:12
06:56:18 I understood quite well that if I didn’t leave Russia, they would never leave me
alone, they’d be persecuting me… In the best case I’d be arrested and spend at lest 10 years
in prison for nothing. To be left alone I had to recant, to take my statements back. Recant
and say, “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again” – meaning, “I won’t ever challenge the system again.”
“I won’t speak the truth.” 07:27:00
07:28:10 And… And that’s the best case. In the worst case they’d just murder me … on my
own doorstep, somewhere.
07:38:00 It was quite possible. I was told so. Actually, not a single one of my former
superiors cared to dissemble about that. 07:46:18
07:47:00 Well, I can tell you a curious episode. Before we made a decision that I had to leave
Russia, naturally it wasn’t just my decision, my wife took part as well. I’m telling this to you
openly and honestly, so you must understand that it wasn’t just my decision. Naturally, I
discussed it with those people close to me – my friends and confederates. That, naturally,
was Boris Berezovsky and Yuri Felshtinsky (checked). 08:21:10
08:21:14 Well… And, naturally, I didn’t wan to leave Russia. And before I made that decision
we tried to make some arrangement with those people at the FSB that were persecuting
me… so they might leave me alone or at least refrain from extreme measures. Felshtinsky,
Yuri, met my former, the head of my Directorate, General Hoholkov (checked). Hoholkov just
said… They talked for quite a long time, a couple of hours I think. 08:53:08
08:53:12 And Yuri asked Hoholkov – I’m sure he’ll confirm… Yuri told Hoholkov “You do
understand that we’re not going to abandon Sasha whatever comes. He’s our friend, our
comrade and we don’t abandon our comrades.” From the times… From the times the
dissidents were struggling against the Soviet Union these people never abandoned their
friends in trouble. That’s the reason there’s no Soviet Union now and no KGB. 09:24:00
09:24:04 And Yuri told Hoholkov “We’re not going to abandon Sasha, we’ll keep helping him.
Why do you need all this? Leave him alone. He’ll get… You dismissed him from the FSB,
he’ll be getting another job. He’s got a wife, a child – let him live in peace,” 09:39:00
09:39:20 And Hoholkov said the following… Yuri told me that. He said “Let Berezovsky pay
me a figure with six zeroes.” That means about… more that a million dollars. It comes to at
leas a million dollars. For me it sounded so cynical… If Hoholkov said, “We’re not going to
leave Litvinenko alone because he challenged the system.” – I could have at least understood
that. 10:07:00
10:07:04 When Hoholkov… If Hoholkov said, “All right, we’ll leave him alone, but he must
never defy the system again.” – I could have understood that as well. But Hoholkov
demanded money, American dollars, mind you. More than a million. And I realised they were
bandits. And I realised that in general… I know how influential was Hoholkov. I knew with
what kind of people he was associating – Yastrzhembsky, Kokoshin… I mean, Hoholkov could
enter any office… including that of Putin. 10:41:21
10:42:00 I understood quite well that the things Hoholkov had been doing he hadn’t been
doing by himself. He had been doing it all upon consulting with Putin and Patrushev. I
realised we were dealing with honesttoGod bandits, who had not a shred of honour or
conscience. And simply… You simply cannot treat with those people. And – forget about
agreements – I simply wouldn’t be able to keep silent. 11:12:00
11:12:04 Because I can… I realised it quite well… It was… That conversation between
Felshtinsky and Hoholkov happened in 2000, sometime in March 2000. In March, or perhaps
in April… I understood quite well that those people now held power and what they’d be doing
with out country. And then I realised I had to escape, really. 11:34:21
11:35:00 Then there came a string of court cases that were breaking the law, that were
breaking the constitution… And when the chairman of the Moscow regional military court a
lieutenant general answered a question by my lawyer… My lawyer asked him “Why are you
breaking the constitution?” And the chairman of the Moscow regional military court, lieutenant
general Beznosiuk proclaimed, “Well, you know our system.” So he hinted that “We have
orders from above, we can’t do anything.” 12:06:00
12:06:04 And I understood I wouldn’t get a fair trial in Russia. That that trial was a fiction. It
was just a performance, a comedy of justice – and I had a particular part written for me in that
performance. And I had no wish to play that part. And I understood that… that would be just
a showtrial. So to save myself, my family, my little kid – I understood I had to run. 12:33:00
12:33:12 Then the threats began… That was when I tried to defend myself at court. I was
ready to prove my innocence. I had ironclad proof – like videotapes of interrogations during
which… it was later claimed that I beat suspects into pulp… Though there existed a
videotape of an interrogation where that man was questioned by a different person altogether
– and nobody laid as much as a finger on him. I have them here in England. 12:57:12
12:57:16 I understood that… Yes, and I was told that if I brought that evidence to court and
the court exonerated me – I’d been exonerated twice before that – nobody would be talking to
me, they’d just kill my child. That was it. That was said in a very final way and I realised I
must escape. And, naturally, we escaped from Russia. That’s regarding the time when we
lived in Russia. 13:26:00
13:26:04 As for the escape itself… Speaking of the technical side of the problem… The
difficulty was that I had no secret/special services backing me. It’s one thing if you’re working
for a secret service or collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency then when you escape
the country you have that foreign intelligence service and its agents in place covering you,
you get a passport made – or they get you through in a car boot – I had nothing of the sort. I
had no secret service backing me up. 13:56:12
13:56:18 The only thing I did have of course, was the money for that escape. Boris
Berezovsky helped me, naturally he didn’t abandon me – he behaved as a normal human
being. And when the question of money cam up Boris said, “Sasha, look. For all practical
purposes you saved my life. And it doesn’t even matter that you saved my life. What matters
that you and me think the same way and we know that with those people in power Russia
won’t be developing normally. 14:23:04
14:23:08 “It’s not only me or you who they’ll kill, they’ll kill lots of other people. And we must
do something that maybe nobody but us can do. We must fight for our ideas, for our
convictions and do everything in our power to turn Russia into a normal civilized country. I
have the money and I’m going to help you. And say…” 14:46:00
14:46:06 I said… I was feeling uncomfortable; after all we were speaking about money… He
said, “You know, he said, “if you had the money would you helped me?” I said “Of course,
Boris Abramovich.” “You see? So I’m going to help you now.” But we weren’t speaking
millions of dollars. It was the kind of money I needed to buy the tickets, to stay at the hotel
and… well, to pay for our food. Well… 15:07:00
15:07:05 And you know… I didn’t have that kind of money. I just didn’t have it. Because I
never took bribes, I didn’t go into… I didn’t go into protection racket milking commercial
enterprises like nearly everybody in the lawenforcement agencies did. The FSB too. In
Russia. I didn’t have the money. I had a pittance…I think… Well, it was a small sum in cash.
I think 2.5 or 3 thousand dollars, no more. Where can one go with that kind of money? One
oneway ticket and two days at the hotel – that’s it, then it runs out. 15:48:02
15:48:06 Well, naturally he helped me with money. He helped me to settle, Boris Berezovsky.
He helped me to settle here in England in the beginning, to find my legs. And I’m very
grateful to that man. Well… 16:02:21
16:03:00 The most difficult moment of that escape was the time when we were in Turkey…
We were followed now I know beyond doubt that we were followed by the agents of the
Russian foreign intelligence service. That was in Ankara. I went to the American Embassy…
I was, I was ushered out of there. And I know now that Russia was trying to make Turkey
agree to arrest and extradite me. But we still managed to scram out of Turkey and fly to
England. 16:37:10
16:37:14 At that moment I had no passport. I had a fake passport of a different state
because my own had been stolen during the police search of my house. I had no visa. And
we were sitting in a hotel in Istanbul my wife, a small child who knew something wrong was
going on and was very nervous. He asked me “Daddy, where will we be tomorrow?” My wife
held out, she is a strong, courageous woman, she held, but she didn’t know what would
happen to our family tomorrow. 17:10:00
17:10:04 We had a suitcase with our things. We had some money for expenses… I didn’t
know what would happen to me tomorrow. The only thing I did say to my wife was that under
no circumstances I’d allow myself to be taken alive and I would not go to prison again.
“Because, I told her, I don’t want to croak having the stink of prison around me, I’d better die
where the air is fresh and the sky is blue. 17:34:21
17:35:00 And… I was looking at my wife, at my child and I was thinking that tomorrow I might
be no more. And at that time it was Alik Elfhart (?) who helped me a lot and I’m very grateful
to him. He found out, he found out on the net that you don’t need a transit visa to go to
England and that’s what decided the fate of my family. We managed to get on the last plane,
as they say. We got stuck in a traffic jam… and 40 minutes before departure we jumped into
that plane and flew to England. 18:07:21
18:08:00 Sometimes I think God saved me. And when God saves somebody, perhaps He
needs it for some reason of His own. 18:16:00
18:35.04 Well. I joined the army… I started working for the army in 1980. I… 18:44:00
18:57:14 I understand. I joined the army in 1980. I started as a private and in 20 years of
service I became a lieutenant colonel. I was a vicedirector of the most secret Directorate of
the Federal Security Service. In principle, I made quite a career in the secret service at 33 I
was a lieutenant colonel, I got that rank ahead of time and actually was one of the youngest
lieutenant colonels in the system. 19:25:00
19:27:00 I was transferred to the KGB, to the Committee of the State Security of the USSR in
1988. 1988. I served in the military counterintelligence section. I ended up there because I
liked that line of work. It was interesting. I was working with people. There was something
mysterious about it. Our papers didn’t say that the KGB actually dealt with terrorism. And the
job of a counterintelligence officer on an operative installation and I was servicing the units
of the special Dzerzhinsky armoured infantry division didn’t include anything reprehensible.
We were exposing people that tried… that stole arms and ammunition or soldiers that
intended to escape the unit with their weapons. We did have several such cases some
officers and sergeants were shot. So in fact we were preventing murders. 20:25:00
20:25:12 At the time… and I was involved in field operations since 89, 1989, at that time the
5 th , the 6 th Article of the Constitution had been already abolished so that… That’s the one on
the status of the CPSU. So the KGB no longer worked with ideology. It was the 6 th Article,
yes, Maria Nikolaevna? Well.. it was.. an article.. Correct me if I’m wrong…. An article of the
Constitution was cancelled and the KGB practically stopped working with ideology. We didn’t
charge our agents with finding out who told what joke about whom and who thought what.
Our task was to prevent emergency situations, escapes, and, of course, to fight, to limit the
activities of the foreign intelligence services. But where would you get foreign agents in an
armoured infantry regiment? 21:19:21
21:20:20 Our duties mostly resembled those of a military police though in principle we were a
KGB unit. And that unit was a part of the whole KGB system. So…21:34:00
21:36:16 After the coup of 1991, after the coup failed, I was transferred to the HQ to the unit…
to the unit fighting organised crime. That was a unit of the Russian secret service. At that
time they created… the Federal Security Agency of the Russian Federation. It reported to
Yeltsin. 22:05:21
22:06:00 That’s when I started working at the HQ. I was working on the
organisedcrimerelated problems, then I transferred into a counterterrorism unit. And I
served there until 1997. In 1997 I… I and several my colleagues were transferred to the top,
most secret unit in the FSB that dealt in as we later understood as we stared getting our
orders extralegal murder. Our unit received orders from the top officials of our country to
liquidate people found disagreeable. 22:49:06
22:49:10 I served in that unit for half a year as a deputy section head… And the fact is we
refused to follow the criminal orders of our superiors, actually the unit mutinied, if it needs to
be spelt out. Well. 23:09:21
23:10:00 Several sections denounced their superiors to the attorney general’s office. For a
year an investigation was run on our superiors, then it was illegally closed and we got
persecuted in turn. Actually they went after us the first day when we rebelled against our
superiors. They started listening to our phone calls and put surveillance on us. Me and my
wife were attacked not far from our house. 23:33:21
23:34:00 On several occasions they tried to send me to a mental hospital, to a psychiatrist…
Well… It’s an old KGB trick, the Fifth Directorate trick… that’s the people who maintained the
ideology. 23:49:12
23:49:16 When all those things failed, didn’t work and persecution grew more severe… When
Putin became the FSB Director we were all sacked on Putin’s orders. I was sacked on 10
January 1999. It was his personal signature… Personal… My order of dismissal was signed
personally by Putin. 24:15:00
24:16:00 Well… They sacked us, they persecuted us so we made a decision… We realised
that we were about to leave the secret service permanently that they would make a short
work of us. So we made a decision, I and five my colleagues made a decision to go to the
people, to the parliament and to use the mass media to tell what was happening with the
Russian secret service. 24:45:00
24:47:12 And we called a press conference in 1998 where we told everything we knew.
Couple of days after that the first criminal charge was brought against me. 24:57:00
24:58:00 As for corruption and criminal activities of the Russian secret service… actually they
have historical roots. If you closely read the KGB documentation it becomes clear… that KGB
has in fact never been a secret service. Only several small units were involved in
counteracting foreign intelligence agencies i.e. doing what a secret service of a civilised
country should be doing. 25:32:00
25:32:04 The main bulk of units and personnel of the KGB, I’d say 70% of all assets and
resources that the KGB had at its disposal were busy with maintaining the regime and
protecting the communist ideology. In reality it was an appendage, a secret appendage of the
Communist Party. 26:00:00
26:00:18 After the Soviet Union… In the Soviet Union, you see, there were two ideologies
the communist one and the criminal one. I mean, the criminal world, it lived by its own laws,
and the Communists could do nothing with it. They liquidated the Upright Men (criminal
authorities), killed them, shot them, threw them into prisons… but they couldn’t do anything.
So… In the Soviet Union there were two ideologies the communist one and the criminal one.
26:31:10
26:31:14 So when in 1991 the Communist Party expired… the communist ideology was
superseded by the criminal one. And those people who worked in the KGB for their ideas
sake started serving for money’s sake. And… since nobody needed the communist ideology
any more they made use of the criminal ideology. 27:05:00
27:06:04 It’s not an accident, that starting at about 1996 when the FSB command posts
became to be filled by people who spent their life fighting the socalled “enemy ideologies”,
that’s the FSB Director, Kovalev Nikolai Dmitrievich, who spent all his life serving in the 5 th
Directorate units, doing the 5 th kinds of jobs, he’s the former underling of Bobkov that’s the
people who persecuted dissidents. 27:33:00
27:36:00 He was replaced at the post of the FSB Director by Mr. Putin who… though he
claims that he served in foreign intelligence he also all his life… he was recruited as a
student by the agents of the 5 th KGB Directorate. His first job was within the 5 th KGB
Directorate. After his posting in Germany he got a job fighting the socalled “enemy
ideologies”. This man has always served in the 5 th Directorate units. The same kind of jobs
fell to Mr Patrushev who also all his life run on the 5th D track. In the KGB, I mean. The
same story with Mr Cherkesov, the close friend of Putin and his confederate who also served
in the 5 th D units. 28:16:00
28:16:04 So… all that team… I’ll tell you, the only things they knew was how to monitor the
mood of the people, how to try to influence what the citizens thought, how to gather gossip,
how to gather gossip and fill up files on people who told what joke about whom… if we’re
speaking in the everyday life terms. 28:42:00
28:44:00 And… because they were used to… because those people need an ideology and the
communist ideology was gone, they adopted a criminal ideology. And it’s not an accident that
Mr. Putin when speaking on TV or holding pressconferences… we often hear… excuse me,
I’m going to quote the President verbatim… I might say something unprintable but I’m
repeating after him verbatim “To bump them off in crappers”, “to cut off something that will
never grow back” all this comes from a criminal jargon. 29:24:00
29:24:12 And if it might seem to some that he says those things by accident, that it’s a slip of
a tongue, I’ll tell you he doesn’t say those things by accident. It’s a message to all those
people who are part of organised crime groups, it’s a message to the corrupt officers in the
lawenforcement agencies and our secret service. It’s a message to the corrupt officials that
the Russian throne has been taken by the member of their caste, of their social strata.
30:00:12
30:00:16 That they must support him and they must fight to preserve the current Russian
regime. And the current Russian regime is criminal, criminal. 30:12:14
30:12:18 And starting from 1996, when I still served in the FSB we started noticing that our
colleagues, many of our colleagues appear to spend more than they were supposed to earn,
they lived beyond their means. They drove around in expensive imported cars, they spent
their holidays at the most expensive resorts, and they had cash… For example I had a
colleague that every day carried 10,000 dollars in his pocket. And actually, they didn’t even
count that money. 30:35:00
30:36:08 Then it got from bad to worse, as they say. You start arresting members of a
criminal group a real criminal group that dealt in murder, protection racket… And as soon as
you arrest them you get a visit or a phone call straight away from one of your colleagues or
your superiors… and you are told that your man must be released because he’s on the
informant’s list of some other unit. That’s a cover story. That’s… 31:20:08
.
31:21:00 So they started establishing… the officers started establishing business ties with the
leaders of the criminal world. And to legalise those ties, to give them a cover they put those
men on the informant’s list as our sources. And as soon as you catch him you’re told, “You
arrested an informant. Let him go.” “You arrested an informant. Let him go.” 31:43:00
31:43:18 Starting at about 1997 we began catching not just criminals but police and FSB
officers… I mean they themselves… they’ve started committing crimes personally. Let’s say
we were arresting police officers that were protected by the FSB officers and by the people
from the attorney general’s office. And we were arresting them not for bribes, not for misuse
of authority or exceeding one’s commission we arrested them for such crimes as kidnapping,
armed robbery… 32:19:06
32:19:10 I mean, those people formed gangs that robbed, killed and kidnapped people and
our superiors knew what they were. They acted on orders from their superiors who in turn
were involved in protection racket, giving “cover” to commercial companies… 32:41:00
32:41:04 After every single such detention or arrest a terrible row would erupt in the
Directorate where I was serving, people who took part in those investigations would be
hounded and harassed, any work on those cases would be blocked, evidence would be
removed… And then it came to direct threats… right up to “How dare you? What right did you
have to detain those policemen?” 33:12:04
33:12:08 Let me tell you, right before my dismissal I arrested… It was my investigation… so I
participated… I was in command… we arrested a gang made of police officers who dealt in
kidnapping, robbery and burglary. They were found guilty. We, I, managed to secure a
verdict sentencing them to 910 years in prison because we delivered watertight evidence of
their criminal activities. But, once again, those who were found guilty were the smallest fry
police sergeants, junior police sergeants… 33:47:08
33:47:12 And when I started reaching for the senior MVD officers, the officers of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs, the officers from the very Security Directorate of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, who not only gave cover to that gang but personally took part in the acts of violence…
When I found leads to the FSB officers, to generals that had ties to those criminal groups…
When we established that that group was not only involved in protection racket and
kidnapping but also in illegal arms deals… We found out that those weapons among other
destinations went also to the Middle East, naturally, you can well understand where it could
have gone… 34:27:12
34:27:16 So we… Who would allow us to follow that thread to the end? The only thing I was
told by an officer of the internal security Directorate that I’ve met was “Sasha, they sell tanks,
they sell arms, the sell… I mean, heavy arms, to Africa. Those arms go to the Middle East.”
34:55:08
34:56:20 I mean now… To corroborate these words… I saw in the office of my head of
Directorate, Hoholkov, that group was linked to Hoholkov… we actually had Hoholkov, the
former head of our Directorate, on file as one of the top people in that group… I once saw
Boot in his office. There’s now an international warrant out for this Boot for illegal arms deals.
35:26:00
35:26:04 That man had ties to Ukrainian criminal groups, that man, according to our records,
had ties to the son of Derkach, the former head of SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) and one
of the closest associates of Ukrainian President Kuchma. On top of that there were links,
there were threads going to the illegal sale of drugs. I mean, the head of our Directorate,
Hoholkov, and it was him who ended up in our sights, his connections… He had links, he
associated with criminal groups that were running drugs from Afghanistan. 36:05:10
36:05:14 That’s Rahi… That’s a man called Gafur… he’s one of the crime bosses in
Uzbekistan, and his associates… in Moscow. That’s Salim. That’s Mr. Yastrzhembsky and
Mr. Kokoshin… All these people are close friends of Hoholkov, and of all those I named.
36:32:00
36:32:04 We established that drugs in huge amounts, tonnes of drugs, including heroin, come
from Afghanistan from the General Abdul Rashid Dustum. They go through Russia… it’s a
transit point, to the St. Petersburg port. From there they go to Spain where they’re parcelled
up… they go to Spain and from there on to Europe. 36:57:00
36:57:20 Apart from that… Here in the West I met Nikolai Melnichenko, that’s the former
bodyguard of Kuchma. For two years he managed to tape the conversations in the office of
Kuchma, the President of Ukraine. And Nikolai Melnichenko’s tapes confirmed that the group
we were investigating in Russia for drug dealing, for importing drugs from Afghanistan, the
same group imported drugs from Columbia. 37:35:10
37:35:14 I must say that our data crossmatched perfectly. I mean, the evidence we gathered
said that in St. Petersburg the drugs went through the St. Petersburg port that was “covered”
by the St. Petersburg FSB officers. That criminal group included Patrushev, Cherkesov, …
Ivanov, Smirnov, he’s now the head of the St. Petersburg Directorate, and Mr. Putin who is
currently President of the Russian Federation. 38:06:00
38:06:04 That’s so to speak the highest echelon. On the lower level it was the Tambov
organised crime group, who is currently ruled by KumarinBarsukov (checked) he is a major
criminal well known in Russian and in St. Petersburg. 38:21:00
38:21:04 Well, Mr. Melnichenko kindly gave me access to his materials, taperecords of his
conversation… taperecords of Kuchma’s conversations with the head of Ukrainian security
service, Mr. Derkach. Derkach reported to Kuchma that… he managed to get evidence from
Germany that Putin had connections to the international drug trade, to one of the biggest
Columbian drug cartels. 38:52:08
38:52:12 That conversation… he and Kuchma were examining those materials. And…
Derkach reported that that the evidence looked very serious. So… That conversation, that
tape was authenticated in America. I have the experts’ report, it’s in English, I can show it to
you if you like. I can even make a copy for you. As a gift. I can also copy the tapes
themselves. And the expert concludes that the tapes are authentic and the tape had not been
subjected to editing or any other… type of counterfeiting or forgery. 39:34:04
39:34:08 So these materials can be used in court as evidence as a part of proof that people
currently holding key positions in the Russian Federation are connected to the international
drug trade. That the Kremlin offices were taken over by criminals. 39:53:00
40:00:12 So now… Yes… that our generals committed crimes, that FSB was riddled with
corruption, that our generals were linked to illegal drug trafficking I reported all that
personally to Putin when he was appointed the FSB Director. That was approximately… I had
that meeting with Putin in the middle of 1998, about a week after he’d been appointed the
Director of the FSB. He invited me to his office. I came. I reported to him all our findings…
about all those crimes; I reported to him all the materials on those facts. 40:44:08
40:44:12 I also presented him with the analytical report on our generals based on the active
cases. It was given to me by my comrades, I mean, I compiled it with the help of my
comrades including those in the internal security Directorate. I don’t want to disclose their
names. Here’s that report. I managed to get it out to the West. Here it is. Here. 41:07:10
41:07:14 It starts, “Information on the major criminal figure of the Central Asian region
Rahimov Gafur Akhmedovich, aka “Gafur”. His connections…” And this report… goes on.
Here it speaks of… here it lists those, here, those who associate with those men. Here we
have Shakro, he’s a known Upright Man, “Little Taiwan” Tartahunov Alimjan Tursunovich, born
on 1 January 1949, city of Tashkent. Here it says, “lives in Germany”, he did live in Germany
at the time. Now, you must know, right?, he’s been arrested and already extradited, and sent
under arrest to the States. 41:53:00
41:53:04 Well… and a number of others. There are people living in America… well.
And here it speaks about… so it goes… this report contains complete information of
connections, phone numbers of that criminal group. More. This report mentions
Yastrzhembsky. Here, it says, “When Yastrzhembsky was a Russian Ambassador abroad…
Gafur stayed, lived at his apartment.” Then we were informed that Yastrzhembsky took
money from that criminal group and built himself a dacha in the Sokolinaya Gora area that’s
not far from Moscow… 42:35:00
42:35:12 Another name mentioned in the report Alisher. … Those people have connections
in the KGB USSR, with the former KGB officers; now those people work in the FSB and are
very highly placed. Here it says that that group has connections with Shamil Tarpishchev,
with Korzhakov Aleksandr Vasilievich, former chief of the protection detail of the President of
Russia. 43:08:10
43:08:14 That group is closely connected with Barsukov Mikhail Ivanovich, the former
Director of the FSB. And with other… I mean, with many other people at the helm of the
Federal Security Service. 43:24:21
43:25:00 This report is not that long but is quite rich in content… It’s an extract from our cases,
an extract connections and… the gist of it. The kind of information that is reported to an
official of the FSB Director level. 43:42:14
43:43:00 Well then… After that I was sacked and all the people about whom… about who I
reported to Putin, including the FSB people, got a promotion. … And when I had a meeting
with my former head of Directorate he told me, “Sasha,” he said… I said “What’s wrong with
Putin? I told him all that stuff, why is he doing this?” And he told me, “Sasha, they share the
money.” Then I understood that Putin… I mean… was directly connected to that criminal
group that was involved in all that stuff. 44:19:14
44:19:18 Though he even before showed up in our files as a man who had corrupt
connections in the criminal organisations of St. Petersburg. But here I was told directly that
the man was connected to that gang, to that group involved in drug dealing. Well, in my book
I wrote that within Putin’s inner circle I had a trusted source who gave me the same
information that Putin was closely associated with that criminal group involved in drug
dealing. When it became known in the FSB that that man has been my source, about two
weeks after our last meeting he was killed. And that’s despite the fact that at that time he was
holding a position of the Economic Advisor to the President. 45:09:21
45:10:10 There was a man called David Dvali who held a post of President’s Aide on matters
economical, now this position is held by Illarionov. So he, being Putin’s Advisor, at Putin at
the time has already been a President, David the last time gave me information on Putin
himself. The FSB found us out and two weeks later David was shot. A man who was an
Economic Advisor to the President. And silence. They made one announcement on TV and
that was it nobody even tried to investigate that matter… All quiet, as if nothing had
happened. 45:50:12
45:50:16 He’d been killed in summer. In summer or in the beginning of autumn. No, he’d
been killed in summer, in summer. In summer or in the end of spring 2002. Just a couple of
months before I left Russia… he’d been shot. 46:08:00
46:09:00 Well, so I want to tell you that… corruption in the lawenforcement agencies and
Russian secret service is not just a case of isolated facts when people are trying to earn some
money illegally, it’s a system that has its root in the office of the President of the Russian
Federation. 46:34:00
46:34:04 And… I know some facts, I have facts at my disposal now when… criminal
proceedings have been started against officers of the lawenforcement agencies or secret
service not those who committed or are at the moment committing those crimes, but, to the
contrary, against those people who actually refuse to commit crimes when ordered so by their
superiors, those people who refuse to trade in drugs, those people who refuse to commit… to
participate in protection racket or take bribes. 47:08:04
47:08:08 They first try to run them out of the agencies, and they do run them out of the
lawenforcement agencies… And if those people try to resist that criminal system they are
sent to prison. At the moment I know that in St. Petersburg there’s a major currently in prison
because he refused to sell drugs. Well … Russia is a criminal country. And it all comes from
the top. 47:35:14
47:51:08 So here are the results of the expertise, for the tape, I mean. 47:56:08
48:07:12 That’s the original. 48:10:00
48:14:20 Let me show you.48:17:00
48:17:04 Yes. You can do it straight away. Switch it on [unclear]. You’re going to edit and
reshuffle it anyway. So let’s shoot it now. 48:24:12
48:25:22 Wait, wait, let’s shoot this part before we forget. 48:28:16
49:29:18 All right, let’s go. Here we go. 49:35:00
49:36:22 Well… Well… For the first time I heard that somebody in the FSB wanted to kill
Berezovsky… I heard about it on 27 December (I’ll give you the exact date) 27 December
1997. 50:01:00
50:01:06 Well, on that day we arrested that was the night of 26 to 27, we arrested a criminal
group of police officers that had been involved in kidnapping, armed robbery and burglary.
And after we arrested the sergeants those personally involved in committing those crimes
we got leads to some highplaced MVD officers that were working in the Internal Security
Directorate and in the main Organised Crime Directorate. 50:32:00
50:33:00 And we already had those people identified and we were going to pick them up
when I got the orders to abort the operation and return to my unit. It was the deputy head of
our Directorate, Kamyshnikov (checked). I passed those orders to my subordinates and we
aborted the operation I was on duty and had to follow my orders and we came back to the
Lubyanka. 50:57:16
50:57:20 We came to Kamyshnikov’s office and Kamyshnikov lived on the same floor as the
Director of the FSB, in the office next door so it was the 4 th floor, room 413. And the
Director of the FSB was in the room 401 here, if you follow the corridor on the fourth floor
here would be the office of the Director and right across it in the room 413, that’s where
Kamyshnikov sat. Those offices were 10 meters away. 51:22:00
51:23:00 And Kamyshnikov began lecturing us that we were not doing our job, that our unit
had been created not to catch criminals but to remove them by using nonstandard methods.
It was a long conversation. That meeting lasted for 2.5 hours. He was showing us various
strategies created by the FBI. “Here, take a look. That’s how the FBI works. You see what
they do…” Though I’ve read those strategic plans… I saw that those were secret, top secret
documents from within the FBI, I have no idea how he got them… but nowhere did I read that
FBI had been killing anybody. “Well, I said, they just dig up information, basically we do the
same thing.” 52:02:21
52:03:00 “Well,” he said he probably showed us those documents to show off. Then he
showed us a book by Sudoplatov, that’s the former head of the terrorist NKVD Directorate
under Stalin. And he said, “That’s what you should be doing.” So he directly said that what
we should have been doing was the kind of work Sudoplatov did. He said, “There are not too
many of us about 80 people in the whole Directorate. That’s the total count; those who do
operative work are even more scarce. And what we must do is… in general what we must be
doing is solving the problems our superiors are facing.” 52:40:21
52:41:00 “For example, when Dudaev was liquidated…” he said, “in this way a problem was
solved… a problem our leaders had… Our country’s leaders had a problem a living president
of Chechnya he got liquidated and the problem was solved.” After that he outlined the main
tasks that we had to deal with. The first task was… to get two our officers that the Chechens
managed to capture in Ingushetia out of captivity in Chechnya. That was the head of the FSB
Ingushetia Directorate Gribov (I think his surname was Gribov) and his deputy, his human
resources man, an officer of the human resources section. 53:19:12
53:19:16 For this purpose… he said that our Directorate has an operation planned to kidnap
Umar Gebrailov. And we had to kidnap Umar Gebrailov he was a wellknown businessman
who later, by the way, even run as a candidate for the post of the President of Russia… We
had to kidnap Umar Gebrailov and exchange him… get the money for him… later we found
out that Umar was to be killed afterwards… and his corpse was to be left in Chechnya and
blamed on some ungovernable Chechen band or Dagestani militia. I have an audiotape, a
videotape where my section head says the same. If you wish I can give it to you, you can use
it i your film. 53:57:21
53:58:00 Well, and already… Where Gebrailov was concerned work was already going on.
They’ve already found a place where to hide him… and where he’d be killed later… in the
Yegorievsk region there were several dachas rented by a unit in our Directorate there was a
private company “Stealth” that was closely working… it was a unit under our “roof”, so to
speak, in English they call it “undercover”. Our Directorate used them to solve some of our
problems. So as to, as they say in the secret service, not to show our ears. 54:32:00
54:32:04 That was the first task I mean, to kidnap Gebrailov, to finish the job and kidnap him.
The second task was to pinpoint the apartments where the Chechen terrorists might be hiding
in Moscow. And the third task, he said that there were people whom we couldn’t touch legally
because they had amassed huge amounts of money. And those people prevent… those
people hamper Russia’s development, those people… interfere with our leadership, they are a
torn in our leadership’s side. And those people must be eliminated because it’s impossible
to put them in prison, they’re rich, they have connections everywhere… 55:09:04
55:09:08 Well, and then he came to me and said, “Do you know Berezovsky?” “Well, I do.”
“Then you have to kill him.” I just, I remained silent and pointed at the cabinet’s walls because
many offices in the Lubyanka were taped. And that surveillance… 55:24:00
55:24:18 No. Why? I pointed at the walls “Well,” I meant, “take a look…” I pointed at the
ceiling, as they say in our line there could be equipment there, mikes. He came closer to
me, bent just like that, “You must kill Berezovsky. You, personally, must do it.” After that it was
no joke, it was said in presence of three other officers… After that he said that… 55:48:20
55:54:12 And he… And then he, I mean… It wasn’t a joke, it was serious, because he warned
us, he said, “If the contents of this conversation become known to anyone else you’ll have
problems, we won’t be talking with you like this.”
What if we’re arrested, caught redhanded.? Especially when we’re to steal Gebrailov he
was guarded by the police officers. So when the head of our section asked what were we
going to do with those policemen the head of our Directorate said “Bump the stinks off.” That’s
our criminal jargon. “Bump the stinks off,” means, “kill those cops”, those policemen. And our
section head said, “How can we kill them? Aren’t they… I mean, that guy is fine, he’s a
Chechen, but they’re our brother Slavs…” And he said, “They shouldn’t guard a Chechen.”
57:16:08
We were given a task to kill police officers in the very heart of Moscow. So… 57:25:00
Besides, when one of my men, Major Pontin said, “All right,
you’re setting us tasks to kidnap and kill Gebrailov, to kill Berezovsky
as well… Before that we were charged with sorting out the situation with
Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin.” (checked) That’s the head of the
investigative department of the tax police who sued the FSB, our former
colleague, we were ordered to kill him as well… 56:29:10
56:29:14 It all has happened in a very brief period of time. And those
events were all in preparation… literally in a very short time one
group was working on the murder of Trepashkin, another group was preparing
Gebrailov’s kidnapping, and the third group was to start preparing for the
liquidation of Berezovsky. 56:45:00
56:46:00 So he says, “We’re doing all that stuff, killing this guy and that
guy… What if we’re arrested, caught redhanded…” Especially when we’re
to steal Gebrailov he was guarded by the police officers. So when the
head of our section asked what were we going to do with those policemen the
head of our Directorate said “Bump the stinks off.” That’s our criminal
jargon. “Bump the stinks off,” means, “kill those cops”, those
policemen. And our section head said, “How can we kill them? Aren’t
they… I mean, that guy is fine, he’s a Chechen, but they’re our brother
Slavs…” And he said, “They shouldn’t guard a Chechen.” 57:16:08
57:16:12 I mean, in fact we had to… we were given a task to kill police
officers in the very heart of Moscow. So… 57:25:00
57:25:04 And so when my subordinate Major Pontin asked, “Well, we start
killing those cops or some other people… And what then? If we’re
arrested, for example… what are we to do?” He answered, “Don’t
worry. Stay mum. Don’t admit it was an order from your superiors. Go to
prison, we’ll get you out. A year, a year and a half in there and we’ll
get you out and you’ll be all right.” 57:48:16
57:48:20 So… Well… it wasn’t a joke, it was serious… Actually we had
a colleague, Bavdeev Boris, who said, “Then give us a written order.” They
told him “Who is ever going to give you a written order like that?” There
were measures taken… For example, with Gebrailov, his phones were wired,
he’s been under surveillance for a couple of months, there was work done on
his brother Hussein. Well… 58:18:08
58:18:12 Work was done on Trepashkin as well external surveillance, his
pager was wired, we listened to his pager, we established his contacts. I
was given his file they got it out of the archives and gave me his
personal file for reference. I mean, it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t just a
joke. In fact those crimes were planned, measures were taken, units were
working in concert… 58:42:16
58:42:20 For example, our unit even had a staff meeting dedicated to
Gebrailov’s kidnapping. There came the people from the task force who
were supposed to organise the kidnapping itself, I mean, the capture of
Gebrailov. Then they were supposed to pass him to us and we then had to
get him out of Moscow and hide him in a basement. Our section head drove
to look over that cellar where we were to hold him, he studied the route…
59:03:21
59:04:00 Well, the people from the task force asked for the money to be
paid up front because before that they had stolen some citizen from
Chechnya your lamp is blinking…
Well… Before that they had stolen a citizen, I think they had stolen him
from Chechnya… and he spent three days handcuffed in a gymnasium, he was
handcuffed to the radiator. That’s the radiator, they handcuffed him to it
and he had to spend three days in the gymnasium… 59:27:12
59:27:16 Then Kamyshnikov picked him up and took him somewhere. Then my
subordinate Shcheglov took 150,000 or 160.000 US dollars in a packet to
give to some Chechens, to a group of Chechens in Moscow on Kamyshnikov’s
orders. They called themselves vahhabites. I mean, Kamyshnikov summoned
one of my subordinates, Major Shcheglov, gave him a packet 150,000 or
160.000 dollars “Go, take that to the Chechens.” The ones he’s been
working with. So I understood it the way that our generals were
associating with groups of Chechens involved in kidnapping. 59:58:12
59:58:16 I mean our men kidnapped them and brought them out, those Chechens
established contact with the relatives and negotiated a sum. Then the
money arrived, it was passed on somehow… and our officers, our generals
passed part of that money to those Chechens, those criminals, you see?
END OF TAPE 1
Support TBCA if you think this document is useful : [give_form id="2685"]Support TBCA if you think this document is useful. Donations are processed by the publisher DRJI: [give_form id="3338"]